- Email: [email protected]
Drafting sales
Board appointment M. B. Williams, Deputy Director of Engineering at the Post Office, has been appointed an independent member of the Computers, Systems and Electronics Requirements Board. Mr Williams is an expert in transmission systems and data communications and has played a notable part in establishing effective world standards for transmission systems. He has been engaged on applications of computers and technology in a wide range of telecommunications problems in systems control and operation. The appointment of Mr Williams completes the membership of the Board, and in addition to the Chairman Mr. J. w. Nichols (Under-Secretary of the DTI's Computers, Systems and Electronics Division), there are four official members.
Drafting sales The latest purchaser of ICI's computer drafting system ISOPEDAC (Integrated System Of Pipework, Estimating, Detailing And Control) is Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing of St. Paul, USA. The system is to be installed with a direct link from a central computer to enable isometric drawings to be produced in the drawing office and ensure rapid turn-round and full control by drawing office staff. The Company first offered ISOPEDAC for sale outside the country in 1970 after using it in large construction projects in ICI manufacturing divisions for a number of years. The system is now in operation in several parts of the world, a recent customer being the Mitsui Shipbuilding and Engineering Co.
BR ITSHIPS installation The British Ship Research Association's BRITSHIPS part-programming system for shipyard steelwork production can now be run by Vickers Shipbuilding Group on their own computer at Barrow. This marks completion of the successful introduction of n.c. for new oxygen cutting equipment that was installed in the yard towards the end of 1971. Barrow became the fourth British yard to install n.c. using the shipbuilding 2C, L programming language which
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is the foundation of BRITSHIPS and they began cutting the plate with this system about the beginning of 1972. The required computer processing has been conducted in the interim period by batch processing at the BSRA bureau at Wallsend, Northumberland, but it has always been the yard's intention to become as fully independent as possible. To help them in this, BSRA have provided the company with a copy of the shipbuilding 2C, L computer program suitable to run on their own IBM 360, and both the Vickers and Swan Hunter shipyards can use the system with their own computers. Recent extensions to the BRITSHIPS system make it particularly suitable for dealing with the complex merchant ships and naval vessels in which Vickers specialise. The advantages claimed for n.c. profiling of shipbuilding steels are that faster cutting speeds and improved accuracy are obtained which also saves fabrication time at a later stage. Shipbuilding 2C, L simplifies the preparation of machine control data and existing staff can easily be retrained in the new methods. The general engineering 2C, L or NELAPT system was originally developed by the National Engineering Laboratory for use with milling machines but has since been modified by BSRA for steel plate cutting applications in shipbuilding. The BRITSHIPS system is based on the shipbuilding 2C, L program but includes programs for design calculations, fairing of ships hulls, development of curved surfaces, and ordering and production control. It also includes post-processors for a range of n.c. shipyard equipment.
The computer speaks Essex University have developed a speech synthesizer called PAT (Parametric Artificial Talker) which can be driven from a number of standard computers by selecting an appropriate interface. PAT consists of a series of circuits that have been designed to simulate the vibration of the vocal chords, the resonance of the vocal tract and the effect of the teeth and lips. The synthesizer is driven by information from eight channels. This information includes the basic frequency or pitch of speech, the amplitude of this frequency,
the amplitude of aspiration, resonant frequencies of vocal tract and the amplitude and resonant frequency of final lines necessary to produce fricatives. The parameters are controlled by data in the computer program. The equipment has been produced by the Electronics Centre at Essex University, the Centre's aim being to provide assistance to outside organizations in the use of modern electronic techniques to improve their designs, products or processes. In addition to the synthesizer, work is in progress on an inverse machine for converting speech into information in a form suitable for storage in a computer for subsequent synthesis (Extracted from Techlink No 1228. Further information from: The Electronics
Centre, Department of Electrical Engineering Science, University of Essex, Wivenhoe Park, Colchester, Essex, C04 3SQ, England. Tel: Colchester 44144)
PCB software sale After eighteen months of study and evaluation of p.c.b, layout systems, SAAB Scania AB has ordered the Redac p.c.b, layout software packagel The software installed at the end of March at the SAAB facility in Linkoping, Sweden is to be used within the SAAB Scania organisation. SAAB at present uses a Gerber 740 digitizer/plotter and now with the help of the Redac system will also be able to provide output to drive the Gerber table, substantially extending the layout capability. The software will operate on a PDP-15/VT-15 computer graphics system, handling boards with up to 1750 connections. It is quite capable of handling the large circuit boards containing over 100 i.c.'s which the company produces for its DATASAAB computers. During the course of the evaluation Redac designed a number of the SAAB boards using its own layout service in Tewkesbury, Gloucestershire. This included a project involving several large boards, each of which contained around typically 7 0 - 8 0 i.c.'s, for which Redac provided accurate artwork with a four week turnround. This order means that three of Sweden's main electronic concerns namely SAAB, L. M. Ericsson and ASEA are now using the Redac system for their p.c.b, layout.
COMPUTER AIDED DESIGN
Drafting sales The latest purchaser of ICI's computer drafting system ISOPEDAC (Integrated System Of Pipework, Estimating, Detailing And Control) is Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing of St. Paul, USA. The system is to be installed with a direct link from a central computer to enable isometric drawings to be produced in the drawing office and ensure rapid turn-round and full control by drawing office staff. The Company first offered ISOPEDAC for sale outside the country in 1970 after using it in large construction projects in ICI manufacturing divisions for a number of years. The system is now in operation in several parts of the world, a recent customer being the Mitsui Shipbuilding and Engineering Co.
BR ITSHIPS installation The British Ship Research Association's BRITSHIPS part-programming system for shipyard steelwork production can now be run by Vickers Shipbuilding Group on their own computer at Barrow. This marks completion of the successful introduction of n.c. for new oxygen cutting equipment that was installed in the yard towards the end of 1971. Barrow became the fourth British yard to install n.c. using the shipbuilding 2C, L programming language which
184
is the foundation of BRITSHIPS and they began cutting the plate with this system about the beginning of 1972. The required computer processing has been conducted in the interim period by batch processing at the BSRA bureau at Wallsend, Northumberland, but it has always been the yard's intention to become as fully independent as possible. To help them in this, BSRA have provided the company with a copy of the shipbuilding 2C, L computer program suitable to run on their own IBM 360, and both the Vickers and Swan Hunter shipyards can use the system with their own computers. Recent extensions to the BRITSHIPS system make it particularly suitable for dealing with the complex merchant ships and naval vessels in which Vickers specialise. The advantages claimed for n.c. profiling of shipbuilding steels are that faster cutting speeds and improved accuracy are obtained which also saves fabrication time at a later stage. Shipbuilding 2C, L simplifies the preparation of machine control data and existing staff can easily be retrained in the new methods. The general engineering 2C, L or NELAPT system was originally developed by the National Engineering Laboratory for use with milling machines but has since been modified by BSRA for steel plate cutting applications in shipbuilding. The BRITSHIPS system is based on the shipbuilding 2C, L program but includes programs for design calculations, fairing of ships hulls, development of curved surfaces, and ordering and production control. It also includes post-processors for a range of n.c. shipyard equipment.
The computer speaks Essex University have developed a speech synthesizer called PAT (Parametric Artificial Talker) which can be driven from a number of standard computers by selecting an appropriate interface. PAT consists of a series of circuits that have been designed to simulate the vibration of the vocal chords, the resonance of the vocal tract and the effect of the teeth and lips. The synthesizer is driven by information from eight channels. This information includes the basic frequency or pitch of speech, the amplitude of this frequency,
the amplitude of aspiration, resonant frequencies of vocal tract and the amplitude and resonant frequency of final lines necessary to produce fricatives. The parameters are controlled by data in the computer program. The equipment has been produced by the Electronics Centre at Essex University, the Centre's aim being to provide assistance to outside organizations in the use of modern electronic techniques to improve their designs, products or processes. In addition to the synthesizer, work is in progress on an inverse machine for converting speech into information in a form suitable for storage in a computer for subsequent synthesis (Extracted from Techlink No 1228. Further information from: The Electronics
Centre, Department of Electrical Engineering Science, University of Essex, Wivenhoe Park, Colchester, Essex, C04 3SQ, England. Tel: Colchester 44144)
PCB software sale After eighteen months of study and evaluation of p.c.b, layout systems, SAAB Scania AB has ordered the Redac p.c.b, layout software packagel The software installed at the end of March at the SAAB facility in Linkoping, Sweden is to be used within the SAAB Scania organisation. SAAB at present uses a Gerber 740 digitizer/plotter and now with the help of the Redac system will also be able to provide output to drive the Gerber table, substantially extending the layout capability. The software will operate on a PDP-15/VT-15 computer graphics system, handling boards with up to 1750 connections. It is quite capable of handling the large circuit boards containing over 100 i.c.'s which the company produces for its DATASAAB computers. During the course of the evaluation Redac designed a number of the SAAB boards using its own layout service in Tewkesbury, Gloucestershire. This included a project involving several large boards, each of which contained around typically 7 0 - 8 0 i.c.'s, for which Redac provided accurate artwork with a four week turnround. This order means that three of Sweden's main electronic concerns namely SAAB, L. M. Ericsson and ASEA are now using the Redac system for their p.c.b, layout.
COMPUTER AIDED DESIGN